John Buchan

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, was born in 1875. You can visit a centre about his life and work in his home village of Broughton, on the road south to Moffat from Edinburgh. He was a politician - and ended up as Governor General of Canada.

He wrote lots of novels of the derring-do variety. He had two major series - one around the exploits of Richard Hannay (starting with The Thirty Nine Steps), the other round a kenspeckle Scots character called Dickson McCunn and a loveable group of Glasgow ruffians called "The Gorbals Diehards". I've read most of what he has written - and enjoyed the genre.

The book on the far left "John McNab" is a particular favourite. Three successful but bored friends in their mid-forties decide to turn to poaching. They are Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer, Tory Member of Parliament (MP), and ex-Attorney General; John Palliser-Yeates, banker and sportsman; and Charles, Earl of Lamancha, former adventurer and present Tory Cabinet Minister. Under the collective name of 'John Macnab', they set up in the Highland home of Sir Archie Roylance, a disabled war hero who wishes to be a Conservative MP.

They issue a challenge to three of Roylance's neighbours, who are forewarned that 'John Macnab' will poach a salmon or a stag from their land and return it to them undetected.

The story is full of humour and excitement and even romance. (Although it has to be said that Buchan's romantic interludes are a bit too straight-laced to be convincing!)